Taking advantage of the growing market for small cars in India, Ford Motor Company has announced its plans to develop a small car and launch it in India in 2010.

Mr Arvind Mathew, Managing Director & President, Ford India Pvt Ltd. said that the Ford India engineers would work with their counterparts in Australia, England and Germany to design the small car using the old shared technology concept. As they have just two years to develop the proposed small car, it cannot be an all-new brand, however, it will be an Indian car.

Mr. Mathew added that the new small car would be cheaper than the base variant of the Ikon which sells at Rs 4.82 lakh ex-showroom in Chennaiand they have plans to sell the new small car in other markets.

Ford Motor Company will be investing Rs 2,000 crore ($500 million) in its Indian operations to expand its car manufacturing capacity to 2 lakh units and it plans to set up an engine manufacturing plant with a capacity of 2.5 lakh units by 2010.